Me too. And most of the cliffhangers are stupid, you know they were added in just to pad out the episodes.
> Lately everything has to be dark and quirkiness is used to explain how someone is directly rude.
Yeah, I've stopped reading crime fiction (and watching crime drama) for exactly this reason: Every detective *has* to be rude/obnoxious, hate their life, be an alcoholic with marriage problems.
And I'm like, why can't we have a mentally stable detective who solves crime because of duty, and not to excorcise their "inner demons" (or other such psychological BS reason usually given).
For this reason, I love Columbo, Poirot and Midsomer murders: The detectives are honourable people, very polite and respectful, but polite doesnt mean they let people walk over them.
It seems to me most crime writers cannot grasp the fact that one can be polite and ruthless (or relentless) at the same time.
The show reinforced what I believed at the time--money dosen't buy happiness, and don't judge people by how they look.
Now--as an aging person--a bit of money would make life easier?
https://www.cartalk.com/blogs/jim-motavalli/columbos-car-it-...
I love the character of Columbo and he would lose nothing if they followed the more traditional detective format where all the bits revealed throughout are tied together in the end.
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one getting really annoyed with the style with which most shows are made these days. I understand that there are good things about having a continuous storyline, and the last season of DS9 shows that it does work. But all shows don't have to be that way.
Shows these days are written for streaming, they are clearly meant to be binged a season at a time. You'll have 4 plots an episode and not a one of them starts and ends in the same one, with several episodes having resolution of anything at all. It's maddening.
Like, there are memorable episodes of some shows, like SG-1's Ergo, that you can sit down and re-watch and enjoy yourself, but this made-for-streaming format just doesn't have that quality. What episode did that cool thing happen in? They all blur together.
It also has one of the best father-daughter relationships I've seen on screen.
I have noticed that quite a lot of how Veronica Mars "worked" got shifted over into iZombie.
The Centauri have a Senate and an Emperor, which I suppose humans have done. The writer and producer stated that he deliberately modeled them on the Roman Empire, but their story reminds me more of the transition from the Wiemar Republic to the Third Reich. The Minbari have castes, which humans have done, but the three castes are completely equal and share all responsibilities and decision–making authority, which humans have never done. The Narn have some kind of legislative body made of “many equal voices”, though we never learn many details. That government gets dissolved and replaced with a government appointed by the Centauri (spoiler!).
Among the League of Non–Aligned Worlds, there is also a Gerontocracy (which humans have never done), a Corportocracy (which I would argue humans have never done, though I know some would disagree), and one alien race draws lots and gets into fist fights, which is hilarious (“You do the same, for flag.”). The Vorlons have no discernible government, but no human society has ever been that inscrutable. But you won’t have seen any of those, since you gave up early.
But I can’t see how any of that is gross. Most fantasy and science fiction examines humanity and the human condition by creating alternate races which are just distorted reflections of our selves. Dwarves and Elves and Hobbits and even Orcs are just aspects of humanity that have been separated out for story–telling purposes, and it’s no different in B5. How can it possibly be gross?
Centari == Franco Roman.
Mimbari == Vague eastern mysticism
Narn == Dark skined prominant skeletal featured war like people
You gotta be really obtuse to not see that plainly for what it is.
The show has it's upsides but let's not pretend what's plain on it's face isn't right there.
The Centauri map onto an empire in decline, so you could point at the late Roman empire, the late Byzantine empire, the late British empire, &c., where they haven't caught up with the reality of their situation and still have delusions of grandeur of the times when they were still ascendant.
The Minbari don't neatly align onto any human cultures. Sure, you can pick out elements of various Far Eastern and Near Eastern cultures, but there's no actual 'mysticism' there. If you wanted to compare them to anything, they're basically less hot-headed Klingons.
The Narn are not 'Dark skined prominant skeletal featured war like people'. To paint them as such misses the point of their whole arc throughout the show, and in particular that of G'Kar. They're a deeply traumatised people trying to recover after a long colonial occupation. About the only reason why you're projecting that onto them is that many human beings from colonised parts of the world have dark skin, but the Narn are not actually portrayed as warlike: that's something the Centauri liked to portray themselves as to excuse their treatment of and subsequent high-handedness with the Narm. From my perspective as someone from Ireland, I see ourselves in the Narn, after centuries of similar treatment from our neighbours to the east.
I would recommend you go back and rewatch the show past the first season.
The Narn are certainly sounding the war drums at the beginning of the show, but that isn’t enough to make them “war–like”. The Centauri and the Minbari are both better at war than the Narn. Two of the Narn characters are the most eloquent and intelligent of any characters on the show. The humans and Minbari fought a war just ten years before the show starts, and you didn’t put either of them down as “war–like”. The Minbari nearly committed true genocide and wiped out the human race completely, but you called them mystics instead.
The Minbari certainly seem like mystics, at least until you meet a few members of the Warrior caste; the diplomats we see at first are only from the Religious caste. And when considered in detail their philosophy is not really very similar to any “Eastern” philosophies you might be thinking of.
But the decadence of the Centauri Republic is intended to remind you of the Roman Empire. There are differences, but that aspect of the Centauri was intended to feel especially familiar. Humans can grow to understand the other races, but they could easily _be_ the Centauri.
The question of religions and philosophy is an interesting one.
Depending on how much of the show you watched, you may have found out that they believe in reincarnation (in fact that think that was a big plot–point of the second or third episode). This is certainly a point of similarity with one “Eastern” religion that I can think of. However, the Minbari have _scientific proof_. The Warrior caste Minbari believe in reincarnation even though they are not religious, because it’s been proven. There are people in the universe who call it a “pretty fantasy” so the question is left open for the viewer, at least until later. However, in other respects their philosophy is not much like that of any human religion which incorporates a belief in reincarnation. Hinduism has reincarnation and castes, but it also has a pantheon of gods. The Minbari have reincarnation and castes too, but no gods at all. Their most revered religious figure is “a Minbari not born of Minbari”; in other words an ordinary Minbari of unusual heritage but not a supernatural being in any way.
Meanwhile, the Centauri believe that they can often see the circumstances of their own death. “Comes in a dream, yes?”. Again, this is something even non–religious Centauri believe. Londo tells Sinclair about his dream, that he has always known that he would be strangled to death by a Centauri (“We are squeezing the life out of each other.”). And he says that as soon as he saw G’Kar for the first time, he recognized him as the Narn in the vision. We the viewers are actually shown the vision, and in season 4 the show follows through and we see how Londo’s death plays out. The Centauri also have Seers who can see the future of other people, and those visions always happen exactly as we are shown them. Meanwhile, the Centauri religion is in many ways the direct antithesis of Christianity, a major human religion that has a strong element of prophecy, and one that became common in the Roman Empire no less. Their religion is much more similar that of the earlier Roman Republic with a whole pantheon of deities, including at least one ascended emperor.
It’s not as important to the plot of the show as the others we see, but in the fifth season we learn that every 200 years on the Brachiri homeworld the dead come back to life for a night to talk to the living and give them advice. And this works not just for the Brachiri; a human on the Brachiri homeworld or on any property owned by the Brachiri during that night will be visited by someone from their own past. One of the visitors, a human who died years before the show begins, relays a message from a character that died in season 3 to one that is still alive, but who wasn’t within the Brachiri zone!
I’m not really sure how to classify the Narn religious beliefs, but at least one of their religious texts contains accurate historical information that turns out to be useful to the main characters.
So in the Babylon 5 universe, many species have religious beliefs that are actually literally true. Those religions share some broad strokes with religions that exist here on Earth today, but not much more than that; the details are always quite different. There’s more depth there than you thought.
Also, the thread was discussing how a show could best weave short and long term story lines together, not their absolute quality.
By chance I noticed if you watch from the midpoint of one episode to the next, there is no cliffhanger. ;-)
Matlock is another great detective(?) show for self-contained episodes.
> Abigail Mitchell: I'm beginning to be very fond of you, Lieutenant. I think you're a very kind man.
> Lt. Columbo: Don't count on that, Miss Mitchell. Don't count on it.
Talking about darkness, I remember Burn Notice, a funny show where an ex-spy used his training to fix his neighbours' problems, much like A-Team.
It was a nice light entertainment, but for some reason, the last season (or last two seasons, can't remember) turned so dark that it was really scary. I started watching it to have some chuckles and finished with a sour taste.
Discovery is just written by toddlers or something.
Like, I was willing to blame it on continuity baggage for the first 2 seasons, plus the first season of every Star Trek is lackluster so whatever. But in season 3 it looked like they'd finally hired a competent writer for a few episodes, Osyraa was suddenly a more nuanced character, the Federation was offered a path to its goals that meant they'd have to compromise their ideals, Burnam was becoming Han Solo [0], Tilly was being slotted into the leadership role her character is actually good at, etc. Then at the last second the toddlers took over again, Deus-ex Burnam'd[1] the ethical decisions, shoved Tilly back into a science role, put Suru on a bus, and put Han Solo in charge of a starship for some reason. What the hell!?
[0] Which is what her character should be, clearly. She doesn't follow rules, she doesn't work well with others, can't lead worth a damn, and she readily compromises her ethics to achieve her goals. She's a terrible Star Fleet captain but she'd be a great chaotic-good rogue.
[1] What the fuck is with Marry-Sue God-Queen Burnam anyway? She has like 95% of the screen time or something and her Picard speeches inspire nothing but contempt for the writers. Like, answer me this: There are regular characters on the bridge other than Tilly, Burnam, and Suru. What are their names? There's Detmer, who we kinda know about because she had that PTSD episode on screen, and I guess that one woman is a cliff diver or something, but I don't know her name. And dude in the back who got horribly murdered by Mud that one time? These aren't red shirts, why aren't we getting any character development for them?
Alright, sorry, I went on a bit of a rant there.
P.S. I'm hesitant to blame the actors for bad performances. I feel like there's a lot of bad direction and obviously terrible material to work with.
P.P.S. I actually think the hack writers are are a pretty good fit for the mirror-universe stuff. It's still garbage writing, but it just sorta fits that place.
If you think of it as `Star Trek: Burnham and the continuing voyages of Discovery`, then it sort of makes sense. Doesn't make it any good though
I'm sure, that it will get a reboot sometime in future. I just hope that it will not receive the same treatment as Star Trek with Discovery. I would appreciate i.e. Natasha Lyone to make it something different enough not to look like a cheap uncanny valley copy. But kindess and clear separation of episodes is a must.